Kosovo's state-owned brewery will be privatised according to the plans drawn up by Kosovo privatisation authority, country’s media reported. The UN governing body, which administers Kosovo at the present, hopes that the offer will attract much needed foreign investment. "We are already talking to potential international investors for both; European companies...major players," John Johnson, head of the privatisation department of the Kosovo Trust Agency, told Reuters in an interview yesterday.

The brewery is in the western town of Pec and has a 40% market share producing 300,000 hectolitres of its own beer annually. According to the Reuters report it is already profitable but would need fresh funds to boost output. Johnson said there may be some employment conditions attached to the sale as the UK authorities did not want mass lay-offs. He declined to comment on which companies might be interested.

19 September, 2003